The project to empower vulnerable Colombian families in Santa Marta ended with positive results!
Families increased their abilities in using family dialogue, self-control and completed their family projects of life.
Domestic violence decreased. Now families take better care of their kids, without aggression or violence.
These are testimonies of the kids at the final evaluation:
“Well, now there is better communication in the family, we can now enjoy time with the family. The problems we have we learned to resolve with dialogue and there’s harmony now”
“… We now share together, we play, we have dinner together, and everything changed for the better in the house”
“My parents started to talk with me. They stop hitting me, they started to trust me!”
“My mother now talks to me, and she doesn’t hit me anymore…”
Thanks to the support of donors like you, today 100 displaced families in Santa Marta-Colombia, improved their family care practice and have better emotional environment to protect the kids from being institutionalized.
Thank you!
In 2015 the, “Empower 100 Vulnerable Colombian Families Project,” helped to strengthen the technical capacity of 50 local government and NGO professionals working to better the quality of life of vulnerable Colombian families. A pilot intervention was executed with 25 vulnerable families in the Las Tres Cruces neighborhood in Santa Marta, Colombia. These families are living under extreme poverty conditions, and are victims of the migration caused by violence.
On October 2015 the results of the experience with these families was presented. The results showed that these families increased their abilities in family dialogue and self-control. Domestic violence also decreased and the parents along with their children started the “Life Project” process.
With the empowering of these families it was possible to show the community a better way to care for kids without aggression or violence, and to make sure that the door to dialogue was kept open in order to resolve conflicts that had to do with decision making. Some testimonies of the kids:
“My parents started to talk with me. They stop hitting me, with dialogue they started to trust me!”
“Well, now there is a lot of communication in the family, we can now enjoy time in the family. The problems we have we now resolved them by dialogue and there’s a lot of harmony now.”
“My mother now talks to me, and she doesn’t hit me anymore…”
“… We now share together, we play, we have dinner together, and everything change for the better in the house”
According to James Heckman (literature Nobel Prize winner), poverty starts with bad parenting and a lack of care for children. Good parental care is basic for the development of happy human beings and is much more important than money. Family care is crucial for the construction and nature of emotional ties. Having healthy emotional ties is the most important element for an adult to be a positive part of a society, work, and be a role-model citizen.
With the experience acquired through this first pilot, the Kidsave foundation wishes to continue building on its proven successful work in this part of the country. To accomplish this goal we are seeking the financial support of cooperative associations and passionate donors like you that want to help an additional 100 families in the neighborhood (Las Tres Cruces) of the city of Santa Marta.
Our project nurtures a process of formation, accompaniment and a rigorous systematization. This systematization allows for the understanding of the conditions of these families and for the registrations of successful practices so that our successes can be replicated for all the families that live in Las Tres Cruces and the other regions of Colombia.
Thank you so much for your support of these vulnerable families and for sharing our story with your friends, families, and social networks.
We want to wish you a very happy and healthy 2016!
Links:
After providing training in the “Familia Activa” program to families in the Las Tres Cruces neighborhood, the Kidsave Colombia Foundation conducted house-to-house follow-up visits. Families received 2 or 3 visits.These visits were carried out to record changes in family perceptions centered on caring for their children in terms of family linkages, family dialogue, life projects and a willingness to participate in family networks.
As Blanca, a community leader and partner of the Kidsave Colombia Foundation said, “The family empowerment program has enabled families to improve their relationships and has created awareness against domestic violence and child abuse. Also families have started to build shared ‘Vision of life’ projects together.”
The results of the follow-up conversations show significant changes in the perception of:
• Sharing – Parents now strive to build a shared vision of their family life project. Together the family sets goals, identifies strategies in order to achieve these goals, and determine what resources they will need in order to improve their family life.
The survey results showed that the training has had a positive impact and has generated changes in family life, relationships, and the overall welfare of the children. Leaders of the community are writing a petition to the new elected Major of the ciy to approve this program in all the vulnerable communities. For these reasons it is important to support the project “Empower Program Colombian Displaced Families in Santa Marta”, which promotes children growing up in a more healthy and nurturing family environment. It is thanks to you, the donor that we are able to pursue our important work. Gracias!
Links:
After training a group of 50 Santa Marta Social Workers and Psychologist to qualified the assistance to displaced families, the project selected a pilot group of 30 women head of families to trained them in 4 components to build a new family project. After the training, Marta and Blanca 2 community leaders are in charge of monitoring the families behaviour.All of the trainees, stated that the family interaction has improved and the relationship with neighbors is more active, also they stated that belonging to soial networks is now a goal to strenght neighborhood security and to keep the teenagers out of drugs.
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
